smart sharpen

[offtheroad]

I need much help in smart sharpen or if anyone has anygood settings
I use a Canon 30D with 24-105 lens and I shoot everything RAW

[Medley]

I use a Rebel XT, which is fairly close in megapixels. Here's my method:

1) Open the image
2) Convert to Lab mode (Image> Mode> Lab Color)
3) Load the lightness channel as a selection. ( Mac:Command-Option-1 or PC: Control- Option-1)
4) Invert the selection (Mac: Command-Shift-I or PC: Control-Shift-I)
5) Go to Filter> Sharpen> Unsharp Mask. Enter 500 for the amount, Radius 1 pixel, Threshold 2 and click OK.
6) Got to Filter> Sharpen> Unsharp Mask again. This time, enter 50% amount, Radius 20 pixels and click OK.
7) Convert back to RGB mode (Image> Mode> RGB)

You may have to play with the settings in step 6 to make it work for your images. Once you find a good setting, record these steps as an action.

Sharpening and noise reduction is something that really should be tailored to each image individually. However, in the real world this is sometimes just impossible due to time constraints. That's the time when these premade actions come in handy.

As a final note, these settings should work reasonably well with the size and resolution of the 30D's images. Higher or lower resolution images will likely need different settings. Of course, you could always make more actions.....

Hope this helps,

-Medley.

[offtheroad]

Thanks I'll give it a try. Some one had mentioned by going into lab color and back out it might currupt the image a bit, but i'll still test it out. Do you know ant thing about the smart sharpen filter in Photoshop?
jbechdel@comcast.net

[Medley]

Thanks I'll give it a try. Some one had mentioned by going into lab color and back out it might currupt the image a bit, but i'll still test it out.

Yeah, I heard that one too. And if you think about it, it makes sense, doesn't it? So I opened an image, converted to Lab mode and back to RGB 25 times. Not only could my eye not tell a difference, but when I put the original image on a new layer over the "modified" image and set the blend mode to difference, I got a black screen. Apparently, Photoshop couldn't tell a difference either. Good enough for me.

Do you know ant thing about the smart sharpen filter in Photoshop?

I see Smart Sharpen as a way to fix specific image problems, such as an unwanted motion or radial blur. For my money, Unsharp Mask is still the general sharpening tool of choice.

-Medley.

[offtheroad]

Thanks Medley. Thats good enough for me also as far as Lab color sharpen goes, I still need to do a little mor investagating into smartsharpen.